By Nancy Carter 

So, you want to reach the homeschool market? We've talked a lot about how to use websites and blogs to connect with homeschoolers, but what about reaching out to the people who are still not online?

Here are a few tips:

Reach out to your local homeschool support groups. Send them freebies to give away at meetings. Offer to come and do a workshop with the parents and/or children. Advertise in their newsletters. You can even advertise in the state homeschool groups' newsletters as well.

Submit press releases to local and nearby city newspapers. These have to be newsy, so either develop a great human interest story or tie in with the current news. Be sure that you give a phone number, as well as a website, so that folks without Internet can contact you as well.

Make business cards and flyers that tell about your product and/or service. Post those at homeschool hangouts - the library, book stores, education stores, health food stores, even toy stores. And in all of that, be sure to have a great hook. Don't just give the name of your product. Explain how it could help them teach their children more easily or to have more fun doing it. I love how Dena's company, Trigger Memory System, really tackles the issue of children struggling with their upper times tables.

Be visible. Network as much as you can. Make sure that your local TV and radio stations, as well as the newspapers, know that you're available for interviews. Get involved in your community and surrounding area.

Homeschoolers are a diverse group, but one thing is common to all of them. They like to talk about homeschool products. Viral Marketing (word of mouth) may be one of the most effective tools in your marketing arsenal. If you have a great product, at the right price, with wonderful customer service, they WILL tell their friends. As you are building and growing your business, always make sure that your customers know that you care about them. Listen to their needs and respond to their feedback. Scripture tells us that we will reap what we sow (Hosea 10:12), so sow seeds of generosity and care for your customers. Remember the reason you are doing what you are doing.

Nancy Carter is Managing Public Relations Consultant for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and loves telling the stories of homeschoolers and homeschool businesses. Join the discussion at www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/PR Mama.

By Laura Fox

You are currently looking for new customers, but you also want to increase the amount your current customers are buying. So, up-sell!

If you take a phone order for a product, politely suggest another product that complements the customer's purchase. Apply this same principle in your online shopping cart. (Amazon is especially good at this.) Your customers may not even be aware of all your other products and will be grateful to hear of the other wonderful resources you have available.

You can also up-sell by running a special that is dependant on the amount ordered. For example, if you know your average order is $100 and you'd like to increase that, run a special for a FREE gift or a percentage off on all orders of $120 or more. You'll start to see customers increase their orders just to get the free gift. Don't have the resources to give a free gift? Try partnering with another homeschool company. It will cost you little and provide good advertising for the other company.

So, get out there and up-sell, up-sell, up-sell!

Laura Fox is a homeschool and Pensacola Christian College graduate. She has been in marketing for five years and joined The Old Schoolhouse Magazine as Director of Marketing in November 2005. She and her husband, Tim, live in hot, sunny Arizona with one dog and one cat. You can email her at Lfox@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com.

By Martha Greene

The first book I ever published was Greene Acres Old Fashioned Cookery Book, now known as Martha's Family Cookery Book, in 1997, and it just sort of happened. Our family owned a bulk foods/grain and bread market in a refurbished barn in our backyard. I began to add some cookbooks and how-to books to our inventory for our customers. Then, as more requests came from our customers, I would print out little recipes and place them in the store. We didn't even own a home computer, but our customers' questions inspired me to begin a notebook of my favorite, most used recipes.

I began Greene Acres Old Fashioned Cookery Book in my own handwriting and started doing little bits of original artwork here and there in it to make it look better than just a list of ingredients. Next I began to make notes about how or why I did this or that in the specific recipe. Soon my dad gave our family our first computer! I was a little frightened of the thing but did love to type. Once I saw how it worked, I pitched the electric typewriter out the window! My eldest daughter was about 15 at the time and took to the computer like a fish takes to water! She seemed to just have a natural knack for graphic design and layout and knew which button to click to make the computer do its magic. After seeing her skills with the computer, I asked her to try to lay out a cookbook for me to sell in our little market. We worked together hour after hour, with my scraps of paper and her skills, and finally had a finished copy of my first cookbook.

I knew nothing about self-publishing but knew I wanted more than one copy! Off we went to a local copy house with our original manuscript. We got an estimate on printing up a large batch of books and having them comb bound. We didn't have much money to invest in my project, just wanted to share my heart, and having them produced at a local copy house and comb bound was the only option I knew of at that time. It gave me the opportunity to get my book into the hands of my customer base, and that satisfied me. The day we picked up the books was thrilling! To see all the hours of work and the things I had to share printed on paper and bound into a book just made me ecstatic. Thus was born our little publishing company, Greene Acres Publications.

We had 500 printed for the first printing and then had to reprint later. The next time, we had 1,500 printed and we got a much better price, of course. These days an author wants to make eight times the cost of publishing, but when I got started I didn't know anything about that. I just wanted to get my money back plus a little profit. We sold the book at a bargain-basement price with very little markup. To be honest, I gave away so many and never kept great records so I'm not sure if we even broke even!

That first year I didn't market my book anywhere. I just sat it on the shelf in my little backyard bulk food market and sold them. Slowly I began to spread out and contact other folks who seemed to have a similar business and sold a few to them to resell in their businesses. Print on demand has been great for us since it is not a huge investment up front and it doesn't take up as much space to store all of the books.

Next I wrote The Bread Basket Cookbook for Large Kitchen Mixers. We had this one done at a local printer as well with print on demand. After that, I completed Marmee's Kitchen Primer just a few years later. As our sales grew, we upgraded all our books to spiral binding for the added durability and ease of laying flat with clear vinyl covers to protect the book covers.

By that time I had learned how to lay out my own books and had joined a Christian Self-Publishing Yahoo group. I learned so much from that group and The Self-Publishing Manual by Dan Poynter that when I was ready to print my next book, The Treasury of Vintage Homekeeping Skills, I was ready to try something new.

After hearing lots of recommendations from other authors, I decided to use Viatech Publishing Solutions. I was fortunate to be able to get excellent prices at my local print shop and did the first 100 copies there, but oftentimes they were bogged down with work. With Viatech, I could submit an order for an additional 50 copies and have them at my door just two days later! This was my first publishing venture using an offset printing press. The only thing I can compare it to is giving birth when that finished book arrives back from the press. We did The Treasury of Vintage Homekeeping Skills as a hardcover with expensive papers and a fully concealed spiral bind. The expense was well worth it to have a beautiful finished product to share. I sold over 700 copies in the first 3 months of its release. That is amazing to me as I have done very little advertising and am only a small home business here at home. 

The biggest thing I did to increase my business was participate in The Old Schoolhouse Spring promo. The year before I had sold $8,000 worth of products; after the TOS promo my sales went up to $37,000! The exposure has been fabulous, and I'm already planning to participate in another promo. I used to send review copies of my book to other companies, but now some of them are actually calling ME when they hear about one of my new releases. I have been blessed beyond my hopes or expectations. My titles are now carried by The Urban Homemaker, Christian Book Distributors, Ripe4Harvest, Hope Chest Legacy, Biblical Womanhood, Grace & Truth Books, Area 127, Joyful Momma Publications, Queen Homeschool Supplies, Lifetime Books and Gifts, TEACHmagazine bookstore, and Children's Books.

My e-Newsletter, Marmee's Home Journal, is a free e-journal that is delivered each month to the reader's email box. When I started I had only about 75 subscribers. Some friends encouraged me to make sure that my Subscribe to My e-News link was very visible on my homepage. Since I made that simple change, my subscriber numbers have grown to over 800. And after I offered a readers-only special, I sold $600 that month. I am constantly working to keep my website updated and feeling like a visit with my customers. I consider all my customers my friends and strive to treat them that way! I couldn't ask for sweeter ladies to patronize my website, and I feel blessed to have crossed paths with each and every one.

My next publishing ventures are already at press as we speak. The Family Recipe Keeper is soon to be released, and The Young Man's Handybook: Preparing Your Son on the Homefront will soon follow. I also have dreams of publishing Marmee's Home Journal in a full-color glossy magazine that will have two seasonal issues per year ... so we'll have to see how many hours I can squeeze into my days as the Lord gives me life and health and continues to bless my ministry.

Martha Greene has been the helpmeet to Roger for 28 years. They have been blessed with 11 children and now are enjoying being grandparents. They make their home on 130 wild acres in rural South Carolina. They chose homeschooling as a way of life in the mid '80s. Martha owns and operates MarmeeDear & Co. from her home - Offering All Things Precious & Pleasant for the Home Circle. You are welcome to visit her anytime at www.MarmeesKitchen.com.

By Laurie Bluedorn

When you decide to write a book or curriculum, one of the first decisions you will need to make is, do you want to go the conventional route and have someone else publish your work, or do you want to self-publish? Going the conventional route has its pluses and minuses and is often the only option many can take, but if you choose to self-publish, here are a few resources we have used.

Yahoo groups

groups.yahoo.com/group/ChristianSelf-Publishing/
This discussion forum is a community of authors and small presses who are involved or interested in self-publishing and in book marketing. At this time, we are limiting the discussion to the self-publishing of any kind of book or curricula that can be used by homeschooling families or private schools. Both newcomers and veterans are welcome. There are about 290 members in this group.

finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Self-Publishing/
This is a secular version of the above group, though much larger, with 2,300 members.

Both groups are valuable for information and support, although you will find that there is a distinct difference in marketing a Christian book or curriculum as opposed to a general book - and if you have a Christian homeschooling book, the market becomes even more unique.

Classic books on self-publishing

The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing by Ross and Ross
The Publishing Game: Publish a Book in 30 Days by Reiss
The Publishing Game: Bestseller in 30 Days by Reiss
The Self-Publishing Manual by Dan Poynter

Even though these books are addressed to self-publishing and marketing secular books, they are valuable resources to get you started thinking in new categories. 

Useful websites

Midwest Book Review is a website specially geared to self-publishers. See the section on Writing and Publishing.

Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn started homeschooling their children in 1980 and have given workshops on homeschooling and classical education across the country. Their publishing company, Trivium Pursuit, produces books and curricula to help parents use classical education in their homeschool. The Bluedorns live in New Boston, Illinois, and can be reached by visiting their website, www.triviumpursuit.com.

Well, we had a lot of fun with last month's free ad contest and enjoyed all of the great responses that we received. Our winner of the drawing from correct answers is Camden Spiller from www.HomeschoolAlumni.org. Congratulations!

And here are last month's questions and answers!

1. What company is paying bloggers to talk about the Olympics and their products?
A) Pepsi
B) The Old Schoolhouse
C) Coca-Cola
D) HomeschoolBlogger

2. What is the first law of marketing in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing? The Law of Leadership

3. What did the creators of Times Tales do to improve the sales of their mini flipchart on their website?
A) Bundled with other products
B) Reduced the price
C) Advertised heavily on their homepage
D) Changed the packaging

4. What tagline does KONOS use to describe what makes them different?
Hands on that turns minds on!

5. How does Gena challenge you to contact 5 people a day to grow?
A) Email them
B) Send them each a personalized letter
C) Comment on their blogs
D) Call them

6. Should you judge the success of your marketing based on direct response?
No, sometimes the repeat exposure helps for future business.

7. What is step 2 in developing your Ready, Set, Action plan?
A) Define your market
B) Look at your company's history
C) Set goals
D) Develop marketing strategies

8. What two factors work together to draw readers into a print ad?
Attention-getting graphic & a powerful headline

9. Which of these methods does Crystal suggest for becoming recognized as an expert in your field?
A) Commit $10,000 a year to advertising
B) Send out five press releases a week
C) Contribute articles to other sites with your bio and website link
D) Go to a homeschool conference in each state

10. What is the most important thing to remember when marketing your product to homeschool parents?
Remember WHY they need it.

When I decided to get serious about publishing my newsletter, New Harvest, I had lots of passion for writing, but not a lot of experience on how to get the word out about my little venture. After placing a couple of ads with The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, I discovered their homeschool blog site and the PR Mama blog. Wow! I feel as if I am receiving an invaluable education in marketing, public relations and business savvy, and all for free on PR Mama! Thank you, Nancy and the rest of the PR Mama team!

Lisa Vitello
New Harvest Homestead

I enjoyed perusing your website. My daughter is starting a mini-business as part of her education and I'll be using this site to help her. Thank you!

Cathy Alger
www.homeschoolblogger.com/Junosmom/

Thanks for the free Marketing 101 course ;-).

Julie Gentry
www.WAHomeschool.com
www.GentryMusicWeb.com

We got such a great response to last month's contest that we decided to do it again. Just read through the PR Mama blog for the answers to these ten questions and then email them to PR Mama@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com by midnight central time Monday, April 10, 2006. Please place PRMama March Contest in the subject line of your email.

You may also enter by mailing your entry on a postcard to:
PRMama March Free Ad Contest
c/o The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
PO Box 1701
Dandridge, Tennessee 37725

Only one entry per person allowed per contest. Business name must be included on each entry. Contest is only open to PRMama e-News subscribers. One winner will be randomly selected from all of those with correct answers and will receive a FREE ¼ page in the Summer 2006 issue of The Old Schoolhouse. Winner will be notified by email and announced in the PRMama April e-Newsletter and on the PRMama blog. Our Summer issue will be highlighting homeschool entrepreneurs and special needs homeschooling, so it's a great time to reach out to those markets. We look forward to reading your entries!

1. What promotional tool does Julie suggest?

A) Tote bags
B) T-shirts
C) Pencils
D) Bumper stickers

2. What kind of program should you establish to encourage repeat customers?

3. Where does Nothing New Press focus their time and money?

A) Advertising
B) Better books
C) Design
D) Website

4. What are four steps for turning prospects into customers?

5. What new venue does Ann Zeise see for educational products?

A) iPods
B) PDAs
C) Cell phones
D) Tivo

6. What is the number 1 reason for using a blog for your business?

7. Where do you need to make sure that your site is indexed?

A) HomeschoolBlogger
B) Yahoo
C) The Carnival of Homeschooling
D) Google

8. What is Crystal's third piece of advice for those wanting to start a business?

9. What does Dena remind us to use to increase our blog traffic?

A) An email signature line with blog or website information
B) A listing in the yellow pages
C) Lots of graphics
D) Numerous popup ads

10. How much does the average homeschool parent spend on educational resources for each child in a year?

Disclaimer and Legal Notice:

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, LLC ("Company") is sponsoring the PRMama Free Ad Contest, running from March 25, 2006 - April 10, 2006.  You must be 18 years of age or older and follow all rules to participate.  Entering the contest constitutes full and complete acceptance of, and a warranty that the entrant has read, understands and agrees to, all contest terms and conditions, including without limitation all of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, LLC Contest Rules ("Official Rules") at http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/Contests/index.php  and The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Writer Guidelines and Terms and Conditions for Submitting Queries (as published on the Internet at http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/writers/).  All Official Rules apply.  Entry also constitutes full consent and unlimited permission for Company to print, publish, broadcast and use all intellectual property and personal information submitted as part of the Contest entry on the Internet and in any and all Company publications in accordance with the Rules.  Entries become the sole property of Company and will not be returned.  Employees and independent contractors of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, LLC, Contest sponsors, individuals or entities furnishing Contest prizes and their family members may not participate in this contest.  Company reserves the sole, discretionary right to determine contest winners and to cancel, terminate, modify, or suspend the contest or the Rules at any time with or without notice or cause, subject to applicable law.  See Official Rules for details.

No purchase necessary.  Void where prohibited by law. 

For a full copy of the Official Rules, please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine: Official Rules Request, P.O. Box 1701, Dandridge, Tennessee 37725.

Do you ever wish you knew how other homeschooling families get it all done?

If so, you need a copy of Secrets of Successful Homeschooling! In this e-book, Paul and Gena Suarez, publishers of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, show you that "Yes! You CAN homeschool!" From Classical Education and Lapbooking, to organizing your home or educating special needs children, this e-book covers it all! You'll receive practical tips, advice and helpful information in an easy-to-understand manner.

"Every story touched me in one way or another. I found myself wishing I could call people and yell 'Finally! A practical book that speaks from the heart when it comes to homeschooling.' " - LaTara Ham-Ying, author, ministry founder, radio show host, business owner, and homeschool mother of two sons

Affordable and instantly downloadable, this e-book would be perfect to help you start out the new year inspired, motivated, and encouraged in your homeschooling journey.

To purchase your copy of Secrets to Successful Homeschooling, visit

www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com/subscribe/secrets.php

Looking for a way to earn extra money? 

Sign up for our affiliate program and you can earn 66% of each sale by telling your friends about our e-book. Sign up here:

www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com/subscribe/affiliate.php

Remember to email me at PRMama@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com with your suggestions for upcoming issues or to have your company highlighted. We hope that we've helped to equip and encourage you. Be sure to visit us online at www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/PRMama, and we'll see you in your inbox next month!

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